Following up on the successful release of Drums of the Deep Vol. 1, Auddict are back with a follow-up release that goes farther into deeply sampled, and at times, much harder hitting percussion than their first effort! Drums of the Deep Vol. 2 is a great compliment to the first installment as it provides for the most part, a different selection of cinematic drums with very little overlap..

Drums of the Deep Vol. 2 sells for: £96.00 for a limited time (regular price is £175.00) from Auddict

Thoughts

One of the criticisms that I had in my review of the first Drums of the Deep was that I wished that Auddict could share with us what blockbuster movies the drums were featured in, as they were billed as “drums used in major Hollywood productions”. Well, shortly after the library came out they could share with us some of the productions that the library had been used in. In fact, Drums of the Deep Vol. 1 has been used in the smash video game Titanfall since it’s release.

This time around we have that info in advance – the drums have been featured in blockbusters like Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars. It’s hard to argue with a pedigree like that. The drums included here are life-like and brilliantly sampled. The dynamics are beautifully captured and you have the ability to tweak the sound of up to five microphone positions, depending on which set of drum samples you are using as there are a variety of two, three and five microphone positions available.

The drums are life-like and brilliantly sampled.

With double the sample set size and a focus on more of a “shot to the gut” percussive sound, Drums of the Deep Vol. 2 is from my perspective very complementary to the first release and aimed squarely at those who need a truly impactful (pardon the pun) drum sound to carry an action scene or drive the momentum in a trailer piece. Compared to the first installment of Drums of the Deep, here we are getting the lower auditory end of the orchestral and percussive drum spectrum. I like the fact that there’s almost no overlap to the previous library and that everything here is sampled to produce even better overall sound. What you’ll find inside are 12 patches for drums like the Gran Casas, Surdos, Taiko, Huge Toms, Boobams and a Tympani Ensemble. The others that I found to be even more appealing to me were the Frame Drums, Field Drums, Rope Tension Drums and Eight Drum Army played by (of course) eight drummers. All of the drums are played with multiple mallets, sticks and varying techniques providing you with great drum sound as well as solid rim shots and cracks.

Drums of the Deep 2 has a very straightforward and simple interface making all the controls available to sculpt your drum sound in sort of a “one-stop shop”. My thought here is that while Auddict gotten more sophisticated with the overall sampling (albeit with five mic positions instead of seven), the emphasis on the interface left it feeling a bit less polished than Drums of the Deep Vol. 1. While it certainly does not detract from the overall sound or usability, it just struck me as a peculiar change. It does have a very nice vintage patina look to it – especially the crack in the VU meter.

On the left side of the interface are controls for LO-Cut, HI-Cut and Pitch control for dialing in your drum sounds. The standard patches sound fantastic on their own, however, you can use these controls to manipulate the drum sound to meet your individual requirements. Reverb control is also included although in most cases I prefer to mix the drums in the room and add reverb using a premium plug-in.

The center section of the interface contains all of the microphone controls. Again, depending on the number of microphones used to sample each of the individual drums, you will be using anywhere between two and five controls. Since the interface bears a striking similarity to the first volume, the sliders for the microphones along with buttons for Solo, Mute and Purge function should be self-explanatory.

Standard Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release allow for further sculpting of your sound. I made a similar comment in my original review for the first library about the use of sound shaping capability using the interface. It was something to the effect that “I really like the ability to design a sound using the Multi-Mic perspective and explore the various options in sound based on distance of Mic placement combined with changing parameters for Pitch and Attack/Release”.It definitely rings true here as well.

If you are looking for a great set of customizable drums for cinematic scoring or trailer work I can definitely recommend Drums of the Deep Volumes 1 & 2. The sampling, while very good in the first installment is even better in the current library. For something really powerful a combination of the Eight Drum Army and the Field Drums or Taikos will give you the solid bottom end you need to drive home the emotion and the action. You can indeed create some very distinct sounds that are uniquely yours.

As with all our review be sure to check out the official demos and videos below to ensure that the instrument is right for your unique needs.

Facts

The library comes in at 27.5 GB and requires a full NI Kontakt version 4 or above license. NI Kontakt Player is not supported. 20,000+ Samples from up to 5 mic positions and up to 7 round robins per hit. Recorded with 6-7 dynamic layers.

Drums of the Deep Vol. 2 sells for: £96.00 for a limited time (regular price is £175.00) from Auddict

Brian is a Composer, Musician, Sound Designer and Producer from Milwaukee. He is a member of the electronic duos Parallaxe and Gorgon Nebula. He owns more VI’s than anyone I know. Check out his solo releases as Arpegiator here. and All his other project works here.

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